Tabula Rasa, now with no FUN!

[Surlyboi]

Case in point, SWG forums.

[geldonyetich2]

Tabula Rasa supporters point out that the "no official forums" thing worked out okay for DAOC.

As for me, I think it's a relatively moot point.  Whether or not there are official forums, MMORPG developers have almost universally demonstrated that they're unable to interpret what the players really want, especially if they're listening to the vocal minority on the forum rant.

[Venkman]

This only works if someone creates the definitive destination for TR. I don't know if any beta testers realized they wouldn't have oboards to go to afterwards. In DAoC days we knew that, but knew that too because almost all the talk was at non-Mythic boards iirc. So in TR's case, you're dispersing what otherwise could have been your community in the hopes they pick up again elsewhere.

Also remember there were a) far fewer games, b) far fewer people; and, c) far fewer big community destinations.

[Kageru]

The end result seems to be that the in-game general chat channel is full of a million and one questions about the mechanics of the game and most people are playing it as a solo pseudo-FPS. Considering there's still a fair number of bugs, design warts and mysteries I think this will cost them subscriptions as people become frustrated with the game. This is especially true where powers are heavily imbalanced and there is no possibility of being able to respec (something only partially covered by cloning). Meanwhile my attempt to find which was the unofficial server for Australians was much more painful than it needed to be.

When are they going to fix X, what's their vision for the game, is mechanic Y actually working properly? Who knows... damned if I'm going to trawl trashy forums because they're lazy and cheap.

[Johny Cee]

Tabula Rasa supporters point out that the "no official forums" thing worked out okay for DAOC.

As for me, I think it's a relatively moot point.  Whether or not there are official forums, MMORPG developers have almost universally demonstrated that they're unable to interpret what the players really want, especially if they're listening to the vocal minority on the forum rant.

Just about the last thing any dev should do when it comes to game design is listen to the community.  Listen to them about what they don't like (quest rewards are underwhelming,  instances take too much time),  listen to them about frivalous nonsense (hats, costumes, trophies),  but Jesus Fucking Christ do NOT listen to the community when they talk about sweeping game changes and redesigns.

Most players are inbred morons.  Even the brighter players are so biased by they're player profession/faction/realm/whatever that they're feedback beyond "I like this/I don't like this" is bound to mess up the game.

By and large, game studios have been fucked over each and every time they stop to listen to the player-base.  Mythic almost killed DAoC by listening to the community,  and you can't blame the vocal forum minority in that case:  Mythic uses polls at login as well.

As much as players say they want change,  90% of the time they just want to vent about something.  Change just pisses them off,  because they have to relearn everything and things are different now.  That's why players HATE nerfs,  even when the nerfs are completely deserved.  That,  and nostalgia tints everything and tends to make old things look alot better (see DAoC old frontiers, UO, etc.)

I haven't checked any DAoC boards in a while,  but players were still bitching about the Frontiers change from 3-4 years ago.  Listening to players,  you'd think that old Emain was the greatest thing ever.  Of course,  back in the day everyone and their mother was screaming about how milegate camping and how unfun old Emain was....

Fuck.  Players were still bitching about the Left Axe nerf.

[Ratman_tf]

Precasting?

[UnSub]

IMO, MMOs need official boards. They also need CMs to stamp down hard on those that get out of line and to manage the info flow in both directions (i.e. from players to devs and back again).

CoH/V has got an excellent community because of the contributions the boards make. There are a ton of sub-forums, some that are mostly unmoderated and some that are closely watched. The current CMs (Lighthouse aka Alex von Minden and Ex Libris who's new) have done a good job of keeping the lid on when major things e.g. NCsoft buying CoH/V, have hit. They've also stamped down control on the forums that CuppaJo left behind (and CuppaJo was beloved by a portion of the forum base, but she IMO worked by making friends with the trolls, which just made them trolls with benefits; I prefer Lighthouse's 'these are the rules and you break them a few times then I ban you'). He and Ex Libris have a bad cop / good cop routine, which seems to work.

The devs also post regularly on the forums and provide numbers / comments directly to the players. To date, I think the CoH/V devs have done well in balancing what players say they want with the direction they want to take the game.

You need a central point for this kind of control. You need community experts, you need discussion and you need to have the frivolous stuff in order to have full use of the serious stuff. Non-centralised forums - meaning that everyone asks the same question 40 times with no answer - are a dumb way of doing business and I'm surprised that CuppaJo plus 2 support CM staff have gone this way. Sure, they have more time for non-forum things - no threads to moderate, no people to caution / ban - but then they have to deal with misinformation being spread by every fansite and the potential that few / no devs will post to any fansite because they'd have to subscribe and get clearance to do so.

[Venkman]

CoX has the benefit of not being big nor having the success that is blue light to moths. Over the years their posting base has reduced to people who actually like the game over anything else, for the most part. All oboard communities eventually evolve this way once a game has shed it's early players and/or those lost to other games. But TR isn't there yet. Instead it'd have the "they nerfed what?!" and "I bought this game but it suxors" type early-game posts that would eventually evolve out. But during that time you get a seedy mass of alienating noise, for both devs and players alike. When games that have launched much better and more complete than TR suffer under this, what possible use is an oboard for it at launch?

Nah, I say give it four to six months, then do an oboard. You've lost people you're going to anyway, but maybe dodged the loss of whoever else they would have brought with this in their virtiol.

[geldonyetich2]

An interesting strategy, that, and it would seem it has merit: undermine people's methods of judging a game by looking at it's release-state official forums by simply not having a official forums until later.  However, such a measure assumes players wouldn't find out some other way, such as reading forums that are completely out of their hands that they're unable to moderate.

The announced reason that was mentioned earlier may actually be closer to the truth.

To be quite blunt - people act differently on official forums than non-official ones. People refuse to 'agree to disagree' about game issues because they think a developer might be reading their post and will get in really vile fights with other players who also refuse to disagree because a developer might be watching. People spam official forums trying to get their pet issue heard or push their agenda because a developer might be watching.

If we moderate your posts then "the developers are trying to silence me because I speak the truth" - or because we must obviously hate specialists/bios/soldiers/grenades/boxer shorts. When the reality is the guy who moderates your posts is not the guy who nerfs your machine gun.

Gathering decent player feedback is hard via forums. I always say its a little like trying to get a blood transfusion by slashing your wrists and pouring blood on your arm: it's messy and not very effective. The signal to noise ratio is poor for feedback and its very difficult to sort/process/quantify the information.

I've been there too often, having witnessed each of these situations firsthand, to refute this logic. 

[geldonyetich2]

Slight bit of confusion there.  That was a Blogger writing that and it seems to differ from what we heard before.  Strange the way it's written though - I'm not sure if it's the original message, the Blogger impersonating the Tabula Rasa team, or if the Blogger happens to be on the Tabula Rasa team and is elaborating.

[Falconeer]

Sum: I don't care that TR has no official forum. They don't accomplish much anyway.

Hell wrong! They provide entertainment when you are b@w. In the case of MMOs I consider them part of the monetary bargain (?).

[Venkman]

I'm not talking about quelling discontent as the main reason for not having oboards. I'm mostly saying it's not worth having oboards at all, for a variety of reasons of which that is one.

And no way official DG or NC reps would say "I always say its a little like trying to get a blood transfusion by slashing your wrists and pouring blood on your arm". That's not very PR-friendly. 

[Simond]

IMO, MMOs need official boards. They also need CMs to stamp down hard on those that get out of line and to manage the info flow in both directions (i.e. from players to devs and back again).

In retrospect, what SOE did with the original EQ Whineplay was genius (even if they only stumbled onto it by accident): Kill the old forums for being a waste of internet, leave them shut down for months, reopen them but outright state that they were a perk and anyone misbehaving would be suspended/banned and may even have repercussions on their play-account, not just forum privileges. Then procedure to Stalinize the boards.

[UnSub]

IMO, MMOs need official boards. They also need CMs to stamp down hard on those that get out of line and to manage the info flow in both directions (i.e. from players to devs and back again).

In retrospect, what SOE did with the original EQ Whineplay was genius (even if they only stumbled onto it by accident): Kill the old forums for being a waste of internet, leave them shut down for months, reopen them but outright state that they were a perk and anyone misbehaving would be suspended/banned and may even have repercussions on their play-account, not just forum privileges. Then procedure to Stalinize the boards.

The oboards are the key communication area for a MMO and everyone needs to behave. Tell the players this and beat them with bansticks when they try to step out of line. The best boards I've seen have strong moderation, either through community enforcement (e.g. f13.net) and / or swift and brutal moderator action. If players want to be on less stringent boards, then they have the fansites.

[Ratman_tf]

Sum: I don't care that TR has no official forum. They don't accomplish much anyway.

Hell wrong! They provide entertainment when you are b@w. In the case of MMOs I consider them part of the monetary bargain (?).

Call. Boardtards don't even get new material. It's always whining about the same fuckin things over and over. Bitchy and boring = Failx2.

[amiable]

The oboards are the key communication area for a MMO and everyone needs to behave. Tell the players this and beat them with bansticks when they try to step out of line. The best boards I've seen have strong moderation, either through community enforcement (e.g. f13.net) and / or swift and brutal moderator action. If players want to be on less stringent boards, then they have the fansites.

I have to agree.  While I'm not a fan of Elitist Jerks playstyle, they have some mighty fine boards.  (check out the "Banhammer" section, it is pretty hilarious, they publicly expose all the idiocy that will get you kicked off the board).

[d4rkj3di]

Currently catassing to victory on Pegasus. Level 32 Spy with another Sniper clone at 30.

Spy is over-powered beyond belief and is due a nerf. Quests are buggy as hell and there's a 1 in 4 chance that it will be broken so bad it can't be completed. There is another 1 in 4 chance that it is broken and requires a specific workaround to make it able to be completed.

Mayhap there will be a real review about it by the end of the week.

[Slyfeind]

As much as players say they want change,  90% of the time they just want to vent about something.  Change just pisses them off,  because they have to relearn everything and things are different now.  That's why players HATE nerfs,  even when the nerfs are completely deserved.  That,  and nostalgia tints everything and tends to make old things look alot better (see DAoC old frontiers, UO, etc.)

At the same time, there's a reason they're venting. The players don't always know what that reason is, but the trick is to decypher the venting into useful feedback. And that ain't always easy. In a lot of cases, it's the way the players are acting rather than the design of the game. Maybe they're zerging a certain bottleneck in a PvP zone, or overcamping an area and causing arguments, kill stealing, etc. But the game can be tweaked and tuned to discourage certain play, and encourage other play. Remove the bottleneck that players complain about, put neat shiny new mobs in a boring area to even out traffic, etc. (But that ain't always easy, either.)

[Hoax]

Mayhap there will be a real review about it by the end of the week.

Please do, also try to include either some kind of stupid scoring system or a chart.  Only if they are filled to the gills with lulz, no pressure though.   

[bhodi]

At the same time, there's a reason they're venting. The players don't always know what that reason is, but the trick is to decypher the venting into useful feedback. And that ain't always easy. In a lot of cases, it's the way the players are acting rather than the design of the game. Maybe they're zerging a certain bottleneck in a PvP zone, or overcamping an area and causing arguments, kill stealing, etc. But the game can be tweaked and tuned to discourage certain play, and encourage other play. Remove the bottleneck that players complain about, put neat shiny new mobs in a boring area to even out traffic, etc. (But that ain't always easy, either.)

If only there was a position in the company who's job it is to filter through the forum muck and deliver trends and insightful posts to developers...

[geldonyetich2]

Thinly veiled allusion towards CS rep aside, I wonder if there really is such a person who can actually properly judge what's forum muck or genuine incite.  The trouble is that bias will naturally get involved and, in the end, developers are no better off listening to a single CS rep than they are the players.

In the end, I think developers need to be able to trust their own talents.  They're professional game makers, they shouldn't need to lean on their players (the vast majority of which will never make a game in their lives) to understand how to make their game better.  If there's a line to be drawn, it's only that they shouldn't fly absolutely blind and ignore their players entirely.  That, being a move to respond to changing environment in which the game is to be created, is still substantially different from looking to players in deciding how to design the game.

[bhodi]

In the end, I think developers need to be able to trust their own talents.  They're professional game makers, they shouldn't need to lean on their players (the vast majority of which will never make a game in their lives) to understand how to make their game better.

This statement makes me think your profession is unrelated to programming or software development. That idea has caused more headache than any other, especially in terms of UI and function design.

It's also flat-out wrong. There are so many development hands in the programming pot that you can't expect a single developer to vet his own work, and he works so close to the innards that you can't expect him to have a bird's eye view of the action. A 'second opinion' is critical. Now, the question is can you distill those opinions and trends from forums, and if you can, is it worth the effort involved.

[Venkman]

The role of CS and CS team and forum mods and all the tech, that all exists. The problem is one of scalability.

2% of a successful game 10 years ago actually posting on boards was maybe 500 people, of which maybe 2% of that would be considered Alphadogs. 2% of how "success" is measured today though? Forum mod teams do not seem to have scaled in size to the number of posters.

But worse yet is the entire format for posting.

How radically has forum tech really changed since the early days of Crossroads of Britannia. Forget the themes, I'm talking raw concept. We're still at the stage where a list of topics attracts the eye and then a player reads a few posts into a thread before replying, regardless of how many pages/posts beyond they hadn't read yet.

The entire concept of forums is still balanced on front-loading. The people who post the most are heard the most. Voting has some impact, but you only need to hit /. to see how far that goes. People are brute-forcing forums into the same den of noise and nonsense they've been since they were web-based versions of Newsgroup.

A radical rethink in how interaction happens is really what is needed. Short of that though, if you don't have the budget to have an appropriately-sized forum mod team, you eliminate free posting and have "everything"* filtered before revealed or elevated.

* because there's no way you'll ever know

[Johny Cee]

Currently catassing to victory on Pegasus. Level 32 Spy with another Sniper clone at 30.

Spy is over-powered beyond belief and is due a nerf. Quests are buggy as hell and there's a 1 in 4 chance that it will be broken so bad it can't be completed. There is another 1 in 4 chance that it is broken and requires a specific workaround to make it able to be completed.

Mayhap there will be a real review about it by the end of the week.

?

Level 28.999 now,  and I count two bugged quests:  Predatory (fixed last patch) and a Mires quest.  Could you define "broken"?

If you had commented on the Mires zone, though:  The zone is fucked.  It's like playing in molasses.  There's maybe a second delay on everything you do.  Which is too bad,  because in concept the zone is brillant.  It's a warzone where the good guys are losing.  Your bases tend to be captured,  and their tend to be packs of enemies backed by mechs and aircraft everywhere.

While overlooking the zone from on a hill,  with the sounds and flash of aritllery hitting in the distance and the roving silhouettes of stalkers while in the foreground packs of Bane beat down the small bands of AFS soldiers,  I said "this would be one of my favorite MMO experiences....  if the lag hadn't made this barely playable."

[geldonyetich2]

In the end, I think developers need to be able to trust their own talents.  They're professional game makers, they shouldn't need to lean on their players (the vast majority of which will never make a game in their lives) to understand how to make their game better.

This statement makes me think your profession is unrelated to programming or software development. That idea has caused more headache than any other, especially in terms of UI and function design.

It's also flat-out wrong. There are so many development hands in the programming pot that you can't expect a single developer to vet his own work, and he works so close to the innards that you can't expect him to have a bird's eye view of the action. A 'second opinion' is critical. Now, the question is can you distill those opinions and trends from forums, and if you can, is it worth the effort involved.

From a programming standpoint, you're absolutely right: It's foolishness to designing a program to be used by people without getting close to those people and understanding what they really need out of the program. 

However, I wasn't talking about a program design standpoint.  I was talking about an artistic standpoint.  The developers need to trust their artistic talents to the point that they can create an entertaining experience.  To expect them to be able to pull a good game experience out of a message board is like expecting an artist to pull a good sculpture from asking people on the street what he'd like them to sculpt.  You either have creative talent or you don't, you can't get it by asking others their opinions.

[Ratman_tf]

However, I wasn't talking about a program design standpoint.  I was talking about an artistic standpoint.  The developers need to trust their artistic talents to the point that they can create an entertaining experience.  To expect them to be able to pull a good game experience out of a message board is like expecting an artist to pull a good sculpture from asking people on the street what he'd like them to sculpt.  You either have creative talent or you don't, you can't get it by asking others their opinions.

You just have to have some kind of... Vision.

[DarkSign]

Well at least this tells me I dont have to play the Stargate MMO. It's shaping up to be a reskinned Tabula Rasa with better lore and more skills. 

[bhodi]

However, I wasn't talking about a program design standpoint.  I was talking about an artistic standpoint.  The developers need to trust their artistic talents to the point that they can create an entertaining experience.  To expect them to be able to pull a good game experience out of a message board is like expecting an artist to pull a good sculpture from asking people on the street what he'd like them to sculpt.  You either have creative talent or you don't, you can't get it by asking others their opinions.

You aren't making sense. Artistic direction is cast in concrete during the first year of development. By time you've opened your public forums you are way, way past any sort of artistic design of a game. You're completely into the mechanics of it -- travel time and methods, advancement/leveling, pvp, game bugs, game balance, exploits, and all the specific, nitty-gritty stuff that forum people bitch about -- sometimes even justifiably.

The most "artistic" feedback you can get out of the forum firehose is a general-and-useless feeling about the game -- "this game sucks" or "I'm canceling / have canceled but I still post" or "I love you devs and want to have your man-babies". The feedback you utilize from forums is mechanics feedback which ultimately (hopefully) makes for a more enjoyable game.

I think the EVE forums are a good example of what I'm talking about. As noisy as they are, player feedback does get distilled out of the noise and implemented. As a counter example, we have artistically re-imagined SWG crying in the corner over there. Sometimes, your purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.

Forum firehose. What a great term. Mental image from UHF when referencing.

[geldonyetich2]

It's a difficult concept to convey.

We're in general agreement that you can get "mechanics feedback" out of the forums and this can be useful for enhancing the enjoyment of the game.  However, I think that you've overly encapsulated the challenge of game design to an overly one-dimensional approach to believe that mechanics feedback is all there is.  Similarly, to say that the artistic direction is cast in concrete is not particularly what I meant either.

Do you play a game because it is a slick and well-designed program or do you play the game due to the appreciation of the artistic aspects of it?  In focusing entirely on the mechanics, you will create the well-designed program.  However, if that's all there was to gaming, you'd be just as happy with a well-designed spreadsheet program.  What it is that sets the game apart are the artistic aspects.

In short, excellent utility is not enough, you need artistic talent to make a game.

I should probably clarify that "artistic" refers to a great deal more than just the graphics and other content.  It includes the way the game has been designed to provoke enjoyment in the partaker.  This artistic slant is the difference between the spreadsheet and the game.  You can't pull this from the forum, it's up to the talent of the developers, and that's the main reason I'm not bemoaning the lack of forums.

[Kageru]

There's two sides to a forum though, not just its role as a developer tool.

Even if the developers ignore everything on the forums it allows your user base to work things out themselves and feel part of the community. For example a major mechanic was apparently removed at the end of beta (bleed through) but the only discussion of this was on the now deleted beta boards. You have to effectively get lucky to realise that the information printed on the official site is actually outdated given discussion is cut into multiple disjointed (and in many cases non-viable) sub-communities. The medic class is arguably pointless due to late design changes, and apparently substantial changes are being considered, but once again there's only shreds of either the issue or the solution on the release boards.

I believe this decision will cost them subscribers. It means players feel less a part of a community (already a problem in a solo heavy game) and it gives the developers no central point to communicate the reasons you'd keep playing when you read the (I assume) currently empty end-game.

.. and it looks cheap.

[Ghambit]

Currently catassing to victory on Pegasus. Level 32 Spy with another Sniper clone at 30.

Spy is over-powered beyond belief and is due a nerf. Quests are buggy as hell and there's a 1 in 4 chance that it will be broken so bad it can't be completed. There is another 1 in 4 chance that it is broken and requires a specific workaround to make it able to be completed.

Mayhap there will be a real review about it by the end of the week.

?

Level 28.999 now,  and I count two bugged quests:  Predatory (fixed last patch) and a Mires quest.  Could you define "broken"?

If you had commented on the Mires zone, though:  The zone is fucked.  It's like playing in molasses.  There's maybe a second delay on everything you do.  Which is too bad,  because in concept the zone is brillant.  It's a warzone where the good guys are losing.  Your bases tend to be captured,  and their tend to be packs of enemies backed by mechs and aircraft everywhere.

While overlooking the zone from on a hill,  with the sounds and flash of aritllery hitting in the distance and the roving silhouettes of stalkers while in the foreground packs of Bane beat down the small bands of AFS soldiers,  I said "this would be one of my favorite MMO experiences....  if the lag hadn't made this barely playable."

My sentiments exactly.  Mires so far IMO is the most well-crafted (concept-wise) zone in the game.  In beta, most players raved about it.  The whole Mires lag issue arose during the 1st release patch I believe.  Since then, it's near unplayable.  Fortunately, most of us have clones that get to play the area again... which I plan to do when they solve this issue.

As for the whole "official forum" thing;  I'm not complaining because many people have easy access to community devs.  As a clan leader, I get regular emails direct from CuppaJo or Critters and she is quite good about keeping up with her correspondence.  Anyone worth the devs' time is pretty well listened to w/o a forum (most fansite and clan leaders, high lvl players(the early 50s), and people who contribute to the community with fiction, apps, events, etc.)

Admins regularly visit the servers and have helped me and my clanmembers out on-the-spot.  I've seen them enact control points, missions, and even give mission credit where needed.

I'd much rather have them actively engaging in meaningful problem-solving then fooling around with a bunch of asstards in an official forum.  If they need random feedback, they can visit the few respectable fansites out there (which they do regularly).

[Typhon]

[...]Anyone worth the devs' time is pretty well listened to w/o a forum (most fansite and clan leaders, high lvl players(the early 50s), and people who contribute to the community with fiction, apps, events, etc.)[...]

Good thing they aren't listening to casual player's feedback on whether the game is fun or not.

[amiable]

[...]Anyone worth the devs' time is pretty well listened to w/o a forum (most fansite and clan leaders, high lvl players(the early 50s), and people who contribute to the community with fiction, apps, events, etc.)[...]

Good thing they aren't listening to casual player's feedback on whether the game is fun or not.

Yeah I'm just finishing up Mires now, that place really is a hole.  On the bright side the lag is so bad my injection gun never overheats. 

The game is still enjoyable though, although I forsee major problems on the way when they need to balance the classes...

[tmp]

Forums can be useful developer info source -- at basic level your players are the proverbial million monkeys sticking their wrenches in orifices of your code and gameplay concepts that you never imagined to exist. Up to you from there to decide if these holes are to be plugged, exposed as enhancement of the original design or whatever.

At the same time though, sheer numbers can be a killer that quickly overwhelms. Not much use for nuggets of info buried under fuckton of monkey poo.

But still, having all that stuff funneled into single point that's official forums beats imo having to actively hop across dozen of 'fan boards' in order to find the same stuff, except repeated X times and discussed in less depth because less of conflicting views and opinions get to meet and clash.

YMMV of course.

[Ghambit]

It doesnt take a million screaming retards on one forum to debug a game.  Sure, they're MMO's... but at their heart they're games with a beginning and an end - at some point testing stops.

And believe you me, if's much easier to find useful nuggest of info. on fansites then on official ones.  And it's much easier on the eyes and seemingly more "neutral" rather than rantish or fanboish. (sites like warcry, stratics, tentonhammer, etc.)  Obviously, if you go to "Butt Monkey's TR Shrine" you're probably in for a rather biased view.  If you stick with the main ones though, they're by no means biased.

Lastly, I'm in support of the fansite model because I believe MMOs create a nice little sub-market for these guys who go through the trouble of creating them.  Rather than cornering the market by making their own support site, they let capitalism take hold and one can make a chunk of change by making their own.  Technically, this is exactly what sites like warcry, stratics, etc. make money at.  And many times they do it much better than a dev can.

How many times have you found yourself at a different site then the one supported in whatever particular game you play??  Think about it.

EVE is the exception because of the huge PvP smacktalk and gross politics.  W/o the support site the game would fail, it's an integral part of the game and a game within itself.